The Impossible Alliance

by Candace Irvin

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes. Perhaps longer.”

  She blinked. “What did you do, knock them all out?”

  He shrugged. “I did not have to drug anyone. We were interrupted by one of DeBruzkya’s men. There has been an emergency, a skirmish near the Delmonican border. A group of freedom fighters surprised DeBruzkya’s men and have gained ground. DeBruzkya and the soldiers left, saying only they would return soon.”

  She swung her gaze to Jared’s and caught his nod.

  “Let’s do it.”

  He was right. It was the best they could hope for.

  She slipped her heels off and twisted the right three-inch wedge around and around until the heel unscrewed completely. She carefully removed the vial of sedatives from the compartment within, then twisted the left heel off to remove the miniature blowgun. By the time she’d finished reattaching both heels, Jared had retrieved the darts, his lock-pick kit and three of his ever-present throwing knives. The dart and picks had been in his heel compartments. Without his boots, she didn’t want to know where he’d hidden those knives.

  Orloff stepped up to the balcony doors and opened them, deftly obscuring the view as Jared vaulted over the side of the stone baluster, landing lightly on the slight rise in the lawn beneath. He held up his hands as she turned her back to Orloff, grunting softly as she dropped neatly to his arms.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m fine—and so’s your dress. Let’s go.”

  He didn’t have to tell her twice. She shadowed him as he turned and led the way, slipping into the mature pine trees surrounding the castle, using the thick trunks to conceal their forward, zigzagging progress as they drew closer and closer to their objective—the outer door Jared had blown off its hinges the week before. Within minutes they were there.

  As close as they could get, anyway.

  Still a good twenty feet. And all of it wide-open, moonlit clearing. She raised her hands to her lips and cooed softly into the night, mimicking a very-early-rising mourning dove. Two soldiers, both armed, stepped into the clearing.

  Dumb.

  Jared rewarded each with a swift dart from the miniature blowgun, tipped in a quick-acting sedative compliments of Orloff.

  The boys fell like bricks.

  She and Jared raced forward. He snagged the Kalashnikovs while she removed the darts. He retrieved his kit and hunkered down in front of the lock of the brand-spanking-new door.

  The seconds dragged out unmercifully, punctuated by the magnified scraps and clicks of metal against metal within her right ear as Jared continued to calmly work the lock.

  “Hurry.”

  “I am.” His words were little more than a murmur. “You want faster results, give me a stick of C-4 and a blasting cap.”

  “What I want is to not feel so bloody exposed.”

  His head came up, three inches from her naked navel and the inner curves of her braless breasts. A half smile crooked his lips. “I’ve got news for you, sweetheart. You are exposed. And this time I had nothing to do with it.”

  She smacked the back of his head as he returned to the lock. “Jerk.” Three seconds later she caught the blessed click as the padlock’s internal mechanism gave way and breathed out her relief. “Thank God.”

  He glanced at her in surprise.

  Great. She probably should have waited until he’d actually opened the damn thing before she’d said something. Fortunately Jared didn’t have time wait around and question her. He eased the door open and they were off again.

  As before, he knew the route, so he took the lead.

  Three more guards and three more knockout darts later, they arrived at the inner door Jared was supposed to have stopped at on the way out of the castle the week before, but hadn’t in his quest to save her hide. She closed her eyes, blocking out the scuff of Jared’s shoes, the magnified scrapes and clicks, as he hunkered down to work on this lock, too.

  The room beyond the door was silent. Empty.

  The mechanism gave way. He tucked his left hand inside the right cuff of his tux, deftly trading the pick for one of the deadlier pieces of his cutlery collection.

  She nudged the razor-sharp knife back up his sleeve. “We’re good to go.”

  “How can you possibly know—” Before he could finish, Alex twisted the knob and slipped inside, flipping on the light. “One of these days, you’re going to have to explain that.”

  One day, she would. But not now. Right now, she gaped. They both gaped. Though they’d discussed this end of the operation in detail, neither of them had been sure what to expect. It sure as hell wasn’t this. DeBruzkya wasn’t merely filthy rich. The man was Midas incarnate.

  A waist-high worktable had been set up along one side of the lab. A spectrometer, an electron microscope and gem scale flanked the sides of the black table. But the focal point was not the array of scientific equipment, but the large wooden chest in the center. It was filled with gems. Every blessed variety on the planet.

  Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, garnets, topaz, amethysts and every crystal formation in between. Fluorescent light from the ceiling reflected off the sparkling stones, igniting a thousand, miniature shimmering rainbows within the room. The jewels themselves ranged from less than a carat to more than fifty. The only thing each gem in the blinding cache had in common was that each and every one had been removed from its original gold, silver or platinum setting. She knew, because the skeletal rings, necklace pendants and brooch settings were still piled haphazardly within two open crates that’d been shoved beneath the table. Crates that also flanked a safe.

  A completely closed and securely locked safe.

  “Christ.”

  She glanced up.

  “I don’t do safes. Not without an explosive. Never quite got the hang of them.”

  She stepped forward. “Help me get it on the table.”

  “Why? You got a stethoscope in those ears, too?” But he stepped forward along with her, dragging the safe out from under the table and hefting it up on top by himself.

  “Thanks.” She tucked the loose curls behind her right ear and got straight to work. By the time she’d clicked through all three stages of the tumbler and jerked the lever up to swing the steel door open, his confusion had mutated into awe. She flushed. “I wear a hearing aid. It’s…sensitive.”

  “I guess so. It also explains a lot.”

  She swung back to the safe, uncomfortable with the admiration within his eyes, amber eyes that glowed more fiercely and more beautifully than all the gems beside her combined. If he knew the rest, there was a good chance it wouldn’t be there. He might not react as Don had, but she doubted he’d be thrilled. She could only pray he’d still be…interested.

  “It’s not here.”

  He was right. Other than the notebook resting on the bottom shelf, the molded bed of velvet on the upper shelf, the safe was completely empty. She snagged the book and flipped through several pages of heavy Delmonican scrawl.

  Eureka! Her excitement must have shown.

  “What is it?”

  “These are Karl’s notes. Records of several scientific tests he conducted on a particular ruby. I’ll need time, but I should be able to translate them.” The devil with time, what she really needed was a—

  “Camera?” The man had gotten way too good at reading her mind.

  She nodded. His crooked smiled hooked directly into her stomach as he held out his hand. She passed him the notebook and forced out her breath as she moved back to the door to stand guard. By the time she turned, he was flipping through the fifty-plus pages with a speed that completely floored her. He’d pause ever so slightly at each chemical formula and diagram, but other than that the scorching gaze never even slowed down.

  That was when it hit her.

  Hit, hell, the realization slammed into her so hard she nearly gasped. This was about more than losing his memory. Even about more than losing his mother. Like most loving sons, like most Alzheimer’s patients themselves
, Jared might have been able to come to terms with both those blows eventually, but to lose the very core of his identity? What then? Did he wonder if there would be anything left?

  All this man had ever had that was truly his own was his brain. His insatiable thirst for knowledge. A thirst that not even a missing high-school and college education had been able to dampen. He’d just gone out and gotten it on his own. She didn’t have to ask how deeply he’d delved into his local library’s stacks growing up. She already knew it was deeper than she’d get in her entire lifetime.

  But the same gift that had forged this man’s rigid backbone and fierce pride had also set him up for thrice the blow. One he might decide he wouldn’t recover from, despite her plea tonight.

  “Done.”

  She blinked. “Already?”

  He flushed. Welcome to the freak show.

  What else had he been called growing up? She didn’t want to know. She smiled softly, instead. “I’m right beside you.”

  And she was.

  Between the two of them, they had the notebook back inside the safe, the safe securely tucked beneath the table, the light off and door locked behind them. Three still-slumbering guards later, and Jared was relocking the outer door, as well. The two outer guards were precisely where they’d been left, too, snuggled up beside the bushes. Given the peach fuzz on the jaws of all five soldiers, the young men would be too terrified to admit to DeBruzkya that some mythical intruder had either gotten the drop on them or they’d fallen asleep on watch. Soldier shortage notwithstanding, they had to know by now that to displease the general was to earn a one-way ticket to a cold, bugle-less funeral. She didn’t argue when Jared grabbed her hand and spun her around, half dragging her with him as he headed for the trees.

  She wasn’t interested in a Rebelian funeral, either. Hers or his.

  She was fairly confident they could avoid both, right up until they reached the base of the stone balcony. It wasn’t the height of the granite wall that daunted her. She and Jared could scale those massive, uneven blocks blindfolded. It was the voices. Orloff’s—and another man’s. A man she didn’t recognize. And not only were they speaking Rebelian, they were rounding the far side of the balcony—at ground level.

  Jared caught the swift cock of Alex’s head and knew something was wrong. Very wrong. “Someone’s coming?”

  “Yes.”

  Blast it to hell. They were almost there. He lowered his whisper to match hers. “How close?”

  “Very.”

  There was only one solution then.

  He pulled Alex close. He caught her swift gasp and swallowed it as he nudged the back of that clingy, shimmering sheath into the hewn stones behind her, a split second later he was forced to swallow his own gasp as he pressed right up against the sheath’s nonexistent front. Right up against her. Harold Blaine’s genius aside, he much preferred this warm, soft chest to that cold, rubber one. So did his body. His hands. So much so, the darn things actually quaked in anticipation as he dragged them up the side of that clingy sheath and delved them straight into the V, greedily cupping the curves beneath. He meant what he’d said.

  An absolutely perfect handful.

  The next gasp he consumed was low and husky and filled with enough raw passion to match the desire now raging through his body, as well as his mind and heart. By the time those voices rounded the corner, he couldn’t be sure if the next gasp had come from Alex or himself. Either way, it did the trick.

  The crude chuckle behind them confirmed it.

  He didn’t have to feign reluctance as he turned to face an older soldier he’d yet to meet, much less peg from the photo array that made up the agency’s collection of DeBruzkya’s advisers. The man must indeed be important to the general’s plans to have remained unphotographed by Marty for five years. Judging from the Rebelian ranking insignia stitched to the ends of the man’s camouflaged fatigues, he was a colonel. But did he have a voice?

  “You must be Dr. Coleman.”

  Evidently so. And a piercing stare to go with it.

  Jared stuck out his right hand, careful to keep Alex behind him as she finished restoring the precarious fit to that scrap of fabric Marty called a dress. “Jeff. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Colonel…?”

  Orloff stepped forward. “Sokolov. I just met the colonel myself ten minutes ago. Apparently the dastardly rebels have advanced farther than was originally reported. Colonel Sokolov and his men must leave to do what they do best. As must we.”

  Sokolov nodded. But that stare was still piercing. Still suspicious.

  Orloff attempted to cover the moment with a knowing grin. “As you can see, Colonel, I was right. Dr. Coleman and his lovely wife, Alice, were merely enjoying an evening…walk.”

  The stare flicked past his left shoulder, to Alex. The suspicion finally ebbed. A thin smile replaced it. “So I see. And did you? Did you enjoy yourself, Frau Coleman?”

  “I did, Colonel. The grounds are lovely. And it’s very warm tonight.” Even with Alex behind his back, Jared could feel the slow flush, the calculated, but seemingly natural awkwardness in her voice. But there was something else, too. Something he couldn’t quite place.

  But he couldn’t risk turning around. In Rebelia, women were second-class citizens. With the colonel suspicious, it would only hurt both their covers to defer to her now.

  Sokolov nodded, then promptly ignored her. “Dr. Orloff is right. The skirmish has—how do you say it?—gotten out of hand. And so, you must leave. The party is over. This way, please. The helicopter awaits.” The colonel, however, didn’t.

  Orloff turned to follow Sokolov back around the corner of the balcony, leaving him and Alex to bring up the rear. But when Jared turned and finally caught a glimpse of her face, he wasn’t sure she could move, much less speak. It was as if she was frozen, trying to absorb a shock to her system. A damned powerful one, too. He was right, something was wrong.

  “What is it?” He slipped his hand behind her neck and used his thumb to tilt her chin up. “Honey?”

  Her shiver unnerved him. “Did you see the pockmark on his face? That’s the man who killed Karl. The man who kidnapped me.”

  Chapter 12

  She was dreaming again.

  Jared lifted the laptop from his thighs, a moment from leaning over and setting it on the nightstand beside the bed in Orloff’s guest room, when the tension locking Alex’s limbs finally eased. His own tension eased as the furrow between her brows smoothed and her breathing evened out.

  She was resting peacefully again.

  He returned the computer to his thighs so he could finish. Finish, hell, he’d barely started. Two hours had passed and he’d entered all of thirteen pitiful pages onto the laptop’s hard drive. Memorizing was easy. But typing? Now that was hard. Took too blasted long, too.

  He hit the return key and settled back against the bed’s headboard, determined to ignore the smooth curves splayed out beside him as he continued to tap out word after word in a language he didn’t even understand onto the keys and then the screen. At first he’d been relieved when he’d noticed Alex succumbing to exhaustion. Knowing her soft, yet sharp gaze was taking in his every movement as he worked, that that bionic ear registered his every sound right down to his studied breaths, had been disconcerting, to say the least.

  The moment the chopper had landed on top of the hospital’s dilapidated helicopter pad, Orloff had been called away. Yes, Alex had been able to peg Sokolov as the man who struck her. But that was all. The lack of case-specific answers during the cab ride home had led to silence. To that question she’d asked him out on that balcony. “If I’m willing to run the risk, if I’m willing to take the chance, who are you to tell me no?”

  But it was his right, wasn’t it?

  Dammit, two weeks ago he’d known exactly where he stood. Exactly what the grim reaper had in store for him and exactly how ugly it would get before it was all over. He’d even come to terms with it. Probably because he’d always known
that this was how it was going to play out. Only now, he wasn’t so sure.

  Lord, was it tempting. Taunting.

  Consuming.

  Could she handle it? Would she? Or would she end up hating him at the end? That, he knew he couldn’t handle.

  Jared swallowed a sigh as he continued to peck at the keys. Three sentences later he stiffened. Because Alex had stiffened. And then she whimpered. The sound ripped into him. The hell with this. He dumped the laptop on the nightstand and then tugged the blanket he’d added to that clingy dress up to her chin, smoothing the honey curls from her temple. It didn’t help. She whimpered again. Flinched.

  “Alex?”

  Her horrified gasp ripped though him as she bolted upright on the bed. He reached out automatically, pulling her close, steadying her. “Hey, it’s me.”

  She blinked. The confusion cleared. But the anguish lingered. “Jared?”

  “Yeah.” He managed a half grin, hoping to ease the remaining horror at what he was pretty sure she’d been reliving. Karl Weiss’s death. “You gonna hit me?”

  That worked. “Depends.”

  He notched a brow. “On what?”

  “On you. You going to deserve it?”

  Despite the moment—hell, despite the night—his grin spread. “Depends.”

  The horror faded. “That’s what I—” She tensed as it slammed back in. “That’s it! I remember now. All of it. I know what Karl was trying to tell me. Or at least, the part he managed to get out before that bastard slit his throat.”

  “What did he say?”

  Something entwined within the pain had him wondering if he really wanted to know. “‘Beware the enemy from within.’ Karl was trying to tell me that someone within the agency sold me out. But who? I can list on one hand the number of agents who know about me, and they include you, Aiden and my uncle.” She shoved the blanket to her waist and swung her legs to the opposite side of the bed. “I’ve got to e-mail Sam. He was right. Someone is after him. And Karl may have known who.”

  Someone was gunning for Samuel Hatch and had used Alex to pull it off? Jared grabbed her arm and hauled her back down to the mattress. “Try that again, and this time start from the beginning.”